Asked to put a square peg in a round hole, I would:

[chacham]

Enlarge the circle

 44/16%

Square the circle

 19/7%

Think about rounding the square

 26/10%

Redefine Pi

 16/6%

Tell them to hire consultants

 40/15%

Fold the square

 10/4%

Use a hammer

 72/27%

Try to create a squircle

 40/15%

267 total votes

[perldigious]

Well, as an engineer who has written my fair share of requirements documents used for legally binding contracts, I would say that your requirements are vague and ill defined. I mean, how big is the round hole compared to the square peg? What material is the hole in and what is the peg made of? What tooling is available for changing the size of either the hole or the peg and what are the cost projections for both non-refundable engineering and recurring manufacturing per unit? What constraints exist based on other project requirements? What regulatory certifications are necessary for product sale? Has legal reviewed this yet?

Obviously we need to secure a modest amount of funding from the customer for initial feasibility and R&D studies before we can even begin to talk about defining and quoting such a complicated project... $50,000, USD, should be enough, we'll get back to you in a month. :-)

[syphilis]

$50,000, USD, should be enough

What about the Environmental Impact Study ?? .... better make it $150,000.

Cheers,
Rob

[BillKSmith]

Requirements for a programing project are seldom much better. We usually use the hammer and then wait for the customer to tell us what he really wanted.

[cavac]

I'd say it also depends on the relative speed at which the square peg is moving in relation to the round hole. If we are talking about opposing near earth orbits, neither the shape of the peg nor the shape of the hole will have any significant role in the ultimate end result. An impact at roughly 16 kilometers (10 miles) per second tends to reform the shape of the participating objects anyway. It also tends to turn parts of the objects to plasma and the rest to hypervelocity bullets, so there are downsides, too.

But all in all, at these kinds of speeds, for a fraction of a nanosecond, the square peg and the round hole will be a perfect fit, no problem. It's only what happens next that will make you want to be not the engineer responsible for the experiment.

[QM]

Asked to put a square peg in a round hole, I would.

Oh! It was a question! I thought it was a statement.

[zentara]

I would

use Tk;

of course!!! :-)

Just 4 fun.......

Read more... (2 kB)

[davies]

Measure (a) the diameter of the circle and (b) the diagonal of the square. If a >= b, it will go in. It won't fill the hole, but that wasn't the problem.

Regards,

John Davies

[syphilis]

Measure (a) the diameter of the circle and (b) the diagonal of the square. If a >= b, it will go in

Actually, the square peg will fit through the circular hole so long as the length of the square's side is less than the hole's diameter ... though you might need to shorten the length of the peg.

Cheers,
Rob

[Lotus1]

If the length of the peg is equal to the length of the square's side then it is a cube. If the length of the peg is equal to or less than the length of the square's side but greater than about half the length of the square's side then it is a block. If the length of the peg is much less than the length of the square's side and the length of the square's side is greater than the diameter of a can or bottle of beer then it is a coaster.

[hippo]

• be unsurprised to find that this is the new USB standard.

[Anonymous Monk]

Note that if your distance function is Manhattan distance, a circle (i.e. set of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point) is a square.

[zentara]

Make a Square-Peg to Round-Hole adaptor, and sell them on Ebay. :-)

[Eily]

Isn't perl the Swiss Army Hammer™ of perl programming, or something like that? :P

[anonymized user 468275]

Warning: this questionnaire was funded by your employer to test whether you have a can-do attitude ;)

[herveus]

Howdy!

I frequently use square-ish pegs to be driven into round holes in my woodworking.

[davies]

Investigate the possibility of an optical illusion.

Regards,

John Davies

[shmem]

...give the whole affair enough spin to make the peg fit, and leave with the words "keep on turning".

[talexb]

Oh, very cool -- I plotted a squircle by hand when I was a high school student, not knowing that it actually had a name. Of course, I loved watching TV, so was drawn to that shape anyway.

[eritain]

There's a good reason for driving square pegs into round holes. The high pressure at the corners makes the peg really stay in place, similar to how square wire-wrapping posts really get a great connection to the wire. The Salt Lake Tabernacle has square pegs that have been sitting tight in their round holes for 150 years.

[stevieb]

Have five forest fires outside your backdoor, two within 15km of your own home after being in the hospital for over a month, and let those fsckn pegs burn? Ashes should fit in the hole just dandy ;)

[stevieb]

Update: I was forced to evacuate my property due to extreme fire activity in NW British Columbia. Nothing like waiting for updates to see if one's property is still existing one day to the next from a hotel five hours away.

In this case, I'd probably just burn the damned peg into ash, and pour it into the hole.

[wjw]

Actually, I would try to dive into the world of quantum mechanics and see if perhaps the two could be made to fit one another if examined from one of the other eight dimensions... I mean, why not? :-)

[trippledubs]

Decry the lack of square holes and attempt revolution, conform, learn to live peacefully in a round peg square hole world

[Anonymous Monk]

That one made me laugh :)

[Anonymous Monk]

I would ask them to hire me as a consultant. Then after thoroughly researching the problem and citing reputable sources like this poll, I would recommend that they use a hammer

[ikegami]

There's a board game that comes with a square round marker...

[fishy]

my $peg = 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 ;
my $hole = 2 * 3.14159 * 2.829;
print "I'm in!\n" if $peg < $hole;

[BrowserUk]

Challenge the requirements.

[Anonymous Monk]

Pluck it